Talks on forming a new coalition government in the Netherlands collapsed again on Monday evening, when chief negotiator Herman Tjeenk Willink said the four parties involved ­­­­­­­had decided not to pursue the alliance. The ruling VVD, Liberal democratic party D66 and the Christian Democrats met for a second series of talks with the left-wing green party GroenLinks over the weekend and on Monday but soon decided to call a halt.

Tjeenk Willink told a news conference said the stumbling block proved to be a motion about reaching deals on returning refugees with North African countries which GroenLinks leader Jesse Klaver rejected. `GroenLinks could not agree to my final proposal,' Tjeenk Willink said.

It is, with this in mind, notable that many of the recent figures of left-wing revival have been older politicians - Mélenchon is sixty-five, Sanders is seventy-five, and Corbyn is sixty-eight. The difference between those politicians and their, sometimes younger opponents, is that they are completely unsullied by the betrayals of the centre. Corbyn's record as a principled opponent of British foreign policy, anti-nuclear campaigner and proponent of Irish republicanism was of a piece with a general incorruptibility. Those politicians implicated in the hacking scandal, or the expenses scandal, or in betrayals such as Clegg's reversal over tuition fees, appealed to a cynical subjectivity: this is just how politics works. Corbyn was being demonised for breaking with this pact, which had been part of what turned millions off parliamentary politics altogether.

I don't know what it's like in Austria but politicians in the UK and US seem to feel obliged to function on 6 or at most 7 hours sleep a night with work or work committments being an overwhelming majority of waking hours. Which means that most of them are barely functional.

I'm sure occasional cat naps are inevitable but it's an odd way to run a railway, let alone a government.

Some of the more excitable are pointing out that the whole process was designed to con the voters and Parliament.

A50 legislation - as passed by Parliament - explicitly labelled advisory, not binding
Cameron - "binding referendum, your wishes will be respected"
Cameron, Osborne, and Corbyn - the most unpopular politicians in the country - lead Remain
Ref - "the will of the people"

And then we discover that Cameron was a closet Eurosceptic all along.

It is, to put it bluntly, an utter crock of shit.

Interestingly the FB remain groups are currently dominated by LDs shrieking about how they're the only true Remain party - an easy claim to make with a handful of MPs - and no one should ever vote for that nasty Corbyn man ever again.

They're oddly quiet about the Tory side.

Some of them become very abusive when challenged about this.

I honestly can't decide if the LDs are actually imbeciles, or if the party is a stage-managed viper's nest of crypto-Tories being manipulated by Tory HQ.

The True Finns - aka the ugly party - elected a new party leader, and the "let's not hide our racism" wing won. The other two parties in government declared that they could not work with the new party leader. Then the True Finns parliament group split down the middle and a new party was born - New Alternative. New Alternative has all the ministers that the True Finns had and will continue in government.

It's not just that centrism is unpopular; there's simply no such thing. The center is a fiction, believed in only by politicians and the people who would like to become them; political science majors and the people who teach them; journalists and the people who imitate them. Nobody else has ever identified themselves with something as vapid and empty--an ideology of no ideology, the plan to keep everything the same, the residue of class power disguised as a doctrine. It's the imaginary space between parties, a desert, a wasteland. For most people, the world doesn't revolve around a happy stable core: it's a nightmare, in which the rich want to fill their veins with the blood of the poor, in which the old promises of health and security are vanishing, in which everything has gone and continues to go monstrously wrong.

That's actually not true. I do know one (1) real life centrist who is no journalist.

Just as politicians are generally far more overtly religious than the people they govern, they are also more right wing. This is to some respect ineviatble as politicians tend to be born richer and thus become wealthier than most voters with certain assumptions about how the world works that simply don't apply for most of us.

this also aplies to the journalists who act as their stenographers, all coming from very siilar social and educational backgrounds.

So their centre ground and the assumptions that drive them may be some way to the right of the electorate.

survey after survey has shown this to be true in the UK and US, I'm sure it's true in most places. Corbyn is the first politician of the modern era who seems to have created a manifesto for the electorate rather than Rupert Murdoch and Viscount Bothermere (Heil owner)

She's not only every bit as stupid as she seems, she seems to have been cursed to a term where the country remains in perpetual crisis and absolutely nothing goes right for her - because every new disaster simply highlights the past seven years of barbarous Tory venality and greed-fuelled incompetence.

Even if her own ambition gave her the option of resigning - questionable, given her history - her party won't allow her to, because all the alternatives are even less popular.

First Act: Brexit referendum.
Second Act: May's hosing at the polls,
Third Act: Grenfell.
Denouement Coup de grace: Tories go down in flames and remain tepid embers for 20 years.
Epilogue: UK cans the Monarchy and the House of Lords.

Britain backpedals Brexit, EU fires Jungker, Disselbloem and Tusk, completely redesigning the bureaucratic closed-doors decision making into something really democratic. France resists neo-lib labour reforms, Italy gets an electoral law and votes in Di Maio as first 5*M prime minister.
Schauble retires, then Draghi.
Macron flakes when he realises Merkel is not his friend and France drops him as fast as he arrived.
Orban has to pay back all the EU funds unless he shapes up.
EU kicks out all American bases, bans nuclear power and powers up the green revolution with massive public investment in new euro grid rollout.
EU unilaterally withdraws from all military alliances with America.
Europe finally starts being worth its salt.
Farage, Salvini, Boris and May are gently escorted to a safe location by kind nurses in white coats, never to be seen again on the world stage.
Blair and Berlusconi in the dock at the ICC Hague.
All council housing is brought up to scratch.
Feel free to add your own wishlist items!

'The history of public debt is full of irony. It rarely follows our ideas of order and justice.' Thomas Piketty

You're not the only person to suggest this. Clearly she's not low-IQ stupid, but she has quite astoundingly poor emotional intelligence and an extremely limited capacity for empathy. She also leaves a much bigger trail of devastating fuck ups than you'd expect from someone who was truly competent and professional.

This from three years ago is disturbingly prophetic, especially if you note all the fiascos and basic mistakes she was responsible for during her time at the Home Office. The Guardian: Theresa May

Notably, each of the last three British Prime Ministers have at different time issued appeals for a more moral capitalism (Tony Blair and Gordon Brown), or more moral business sector (David Cameron) in response to a range of problems including bribery, high risk financial activities, interest-rate fixing and rising executive pay. That idea of simply needing more morality, or less immorality is deeply flawed.

Economic practices (including the use of deception, intimidation or violence while earning a living) are already supported by a set of specific moral views, understandings, priorities and claims. In other words, our current neoliberal economy does constitute a moral order whether we like the dominant morals or not.

In her reshuffle this week, Prime Minister Theresa May promoted the MP to a junior role in the Department for Work and Pensions.

During the 2013 exchange, Labour MP Alison McGovern asked Mr Opperman to consider the reality of working on a contract that did not guarantee hours "perhaps not in his own life, but in reality, in our economy now."

Mr Opperman replied: "As a barrister, I spent two and a half years without a contract. With respect, I therefore suggest I do have some experience of that, with no contract whatsoever."

Rodman said earlier in a tweet: "I'm back! Thanks to my sponsor Potcoin." The company bills itself as a digital crypto-currency [!] provider for the legal marijuana industry. Rodman added in the tweet that he would "discuss my mission upon my return to the USA".
[...]
The heavily tattooed Rodman has developed an unlikely relationship with Mr Kim since making his first trip in March 2013, when he declared the leader a "friend for life".

At the time, Mr Trump tweeted: "The only American who has met with the North Korean man child is Dennis Rodman. Isn't that frightening and sad?"

In a new legal challenge to President Trump, the Democratic attorneys general of Maryland and the District of Columbia filed a lawsuit on Monday claiming that the president's failure to shed his businesses has undermined public trust and violated constitutional bans against self-dealing.

The complaint, filed in a Maryland federal court, makes many of the same arguments as a lawsuit filed this year by a Washington watchdog organization in a New York federal court. But some legal experts said the new suit may progress further because the plaintiffs were government entities, which could have stronger standing to sue the president.

It is part of a broader effort by Mr. Trump's critics to force him to defend his continued ownership of his business empire. Some congressional Democrats are expected to file a third suit as early as this week arguing that his behavior is also unconstitutional.

The Constitution prohibits federal officials from accepting gifts or emoluments from foreign governments. It also prohibits the president from accepting economic benefits or emoluments from the federal or state governments, other than his salary. But in 230 years, no court has interpreted what exactly constitutes an emolument.

Brian E. Frosh, the Maryland attorney general, said if the lawsuit progressed to the discovery phase, he and Karl Racine, the attorney general for the District of Columbia, would seek to obtain the president's tax returns to gauge the extent of his business dealings.

"It is unprecedented that the American people must question day after day whether decisions are made and actions are taken to benefit the United States or to benefit Donald Trump," he said. "The president's conflicts of interest threaten our democracy."

One significant flaw in the complaint exposes the standing of the gov't.s of MD and the D.C. to dismissal: The complaint does not refer to any material evidence of loss, or injury, to their sovereign rights that instantiates "unfair competition" enjoyed by the defendant at their expense and that of their um "residents" and casinos.

For example, plaintiffs have not submitted gross tax receipts in the period at issue --at least Nov 2016 to present-- with the claims to the court as exhibits. Such exhibits typically would be cited in the brief, if they support prima facie claim of harm(s)including but not limited to racketeering, for instance, and do not rely on court-ordered discovery of defendant's business records or personal income tax documents filed with state and federal treasuries.

Instead the brief relies in the main on press reports, the Comey Method rather than Federal Rules of Evidence. Not a constructive strategy for a "landmark" decision.

"Prayer for Relief"
Plaintiffs principled arguments of harm, suborned by the defendant's alleged violations of federal and state emolument prohibitions, however, tend to undermine the foundations of capitalist enterprise that ordinary "residents" hold dear, namely usufruct, personalty, and realty in the private domain; or advocate for another coat of socialist profit atop public-private-partnership that the office of the POTUS purportedly represents.

I look forward to that remedy which the solomonic court of the united states will propose ... with the advice and consent of the several landowners populating congress.

Attys-general for the state of MD and District of Columbia presented this hotel as an exemplar in their complaint of injuries (primarily future tax losses, possibly tax avoidance) induced by Mr Trump's violations of emoluments clauses. I implied the brief is weak. Bill and Caleb try to help out with a bolluxed application of GAAP to US "disclosure" forms. These in no way resemble either financial reports or statements required of publicly traded firms (which "Trump" is not) by the SEC or corporate and individual income (hold that thought) tax returns required by the IRS.

Plaintiffs' Damage Control: Revenue is not income?

The disclosure form, the first Trump has filed since taking office, says that his hundreds of holdings produced at least $528.9 million over a 15 1/2-month period that ended in April. That number appears to mix revenue with income, as Trump's previous disclosures have.

Pedantry

Revenue is income. Turnover is income. The top-line of any profit and loss (P&L) statement, "gross revenue" or "gross income" or "earnings," is the sum of all monies produced by any enterprise/activity in a specific period EXCEPT unearned income. Unearned income of an enterprise --be that of an individual or corporation-- is money produced by title of a security (an ownership interest in indenture or debenture) issued by a third-party enterprise.

Both IRS and SEC reporting forms segregate gross income from gross unearned income amounts by line item. Unearned income is far down the list and not detailed, altho' the earnest reader may read footnotes for clues. where the reporter adds back profit (loss) to EBITDA (Earnings Before Interest Tax Depreciation Amortization less all expenses) in order to calculate net income. Which is similar to Adjusted Gross Income amount on yer individual income tax filing form.

What Bill and Caleb should have said is, disclosure reporting provides no means to differentiate income produced by corporate and individual activities, because "Trump" and the corporate enterprise are one and the same, as the story goes. Let's carry on. The public of liberal liberals hope to impeach The Man rather than the company for alleged violations of emoluments clauses. Institutions of capitalism must prevail. Therefore The Man must somehow be isolated from the body of the corporation --all the employees EXCEPT the Russian ones-- in order to ascertain the depth of The Man's depravity, personalty, profit (loss) from "holdings". That is The Man's unearned income ... regardless of enterprise profit (loss) reporting.

Private Equity Investors Shocked

The financial disclosure forms that U.S. officials are required to file offer only an imperfect window into Trump's assets, debt and income.
[...]
The ranges listed for liabilities were largely unchanged from prior disclosures.
[...]
Three lawsuits claim that Trump's businesses [?]-- including the hotel -- violate the U.S. Constitution's "emoluments clause," which bans U.S. officials from accepting payments or gifts from foreign governments or from U.S. state and local governments.

WELLINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump told his top diplomat that the dispute over probes into links between his inner circle and Russia should not undermine U.S. efforts to rebuild relations with Moscow, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said on Tuesday.

Speaking in New Zealand after a trip to Australia, Tillerson reiterated the U.S. commitment to the Asia-Pacific region as global leaders have expressed growing mistrust over the Trump administration, which has withdrawn from key international agreements since taking office.

At home, Trump's administration has been plagued by questions over links to the Russian government. Tillerson said Trump told him to try to improve ties with Russia regardless of the U.S. political backdrop.

"I can't really comment on any of that because I don't have any direct knowledge," Tillerson told a news conference in Wellington, when asked how worried he was that the U.S. political crisis could take down the Trump administration.

This experience should haunt Democrats as they pursue a byzantine investigation into Trump's alleged Russian ties. In a world that still hasn't recovered from the 2008 crash, most voters simply do not care about geopolitical conspiracy theories; they want politics that will make a difference to their own lives. And the Democrats can't offer that either: whatever its merits, the Russian probe offers a distraction from the fact that the mainstream offers no ideological alternative to Trumpism. After all, if Trump is impeached, the country is left with Mike Pence, and then after him a catalogue of further monstrosities, degenerating and without end. Even if the collusion narrative is true--and it's become so vast and convoluted it seems unlikely to prove Trump's undoing--this is not the terrain on which modern conservatism should be fought. Political change doesn't come out of Senate hearings; it comes from the people, and people are far more receptive to good progressive policies than they are to shrieking about treason.

Which is why only little bits of social progressive items will ever come from the Democrats - as currently constructed. They are, effectively, a patronage network owing allegiance to billionaires, some of whom are socially progressive.

NSA Director Mike Rogers asserted that his agency "watched" Russia hack the French election infrastructure. For the last month establishment media outlets and establishment loyalists have been repeating this allegation as unquestionable fact, in the exact same way they repeat the Russian hacking narrative of the 2016 US elections as an unquestionable fact. And yet they were all dead wrong. Guillaume Poupard, the head of France's cyber security agency, told the Associated Press that there was "no trace" of Russian meddling and that the hack of the Macron campaign "was so generic and simple that it could have been practically anyone."

Links in the original. There are some dubious points before this for example Snowden's assertion that the NSA is absolutely certain to have evidence proving Russian involvement if there exists such evidence (How? suppose they track the hackers to an internet cafe in front of the Kremlin. Does that prove without a doubt that the Russian government is involved?), but this is spot on.

Good collection. Some arguments weaker than others, but overall a handy collection of links.

Regarding XKEYSCORE, if there was hackers and they did anything except hacking the DNC on those laptops in that cyber cafe, there is a chance they accidentally identified themselves. I think.

Anyway, I support Snowden (and other former analysts) in their demand to see the proof. Right now it's like a break in at the surveillance camera factory and the company won't show the surveillance tapes, but they gladly offer a bunch of circumstantial evidence all pointing to a competing firm. Yes, maybe the perpetrators were masked, but do present the tapes.

"On a day when Iran has been attacked by ISIS, by terrorism, now is not the time to go forward with legislation calling for sanctions against Iran," Vermont's Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders said on the floor before the Senate did just that. "Let us be aware and cognizant that earlier today the people of Iran suffered a horrific terror attack in their capital, Tehran."

So on a day when Iran hasn't been attacked, it's fine? No idea if he voted for sanctions, or was the one missing from that 92-7 vote.

Malignant narcissism is a psychological syndrome comprising an extreme mix of narcissism, antisocial personality disorder, aggression, and sadism.[1] Often grandiose, and always ready to raise hostility levels, the malignant narcissist undermines organizations in which they are involved, and dehumanizes the people with whom they associate

Voters for decades were conned into thinking they were noisome minorities whose best path to influence is to make peace with the mightier "center," which inevitably turns out to support military interventionism, fewer taxes for the rich, corporate deregulation and a ban on unrealistic "giveaway" proposals like free higher education. Those are the realistic, moderate, popular ideas, we're told.

But it's a Wizard of Oz trick, just like American politics in general. There is no numerically massive center behind the curtain. What there is instead is a tiny island of wealthy donors, surrounded by a protective ring of for-sale major-party politicians (read: employees) whose job it is to castigate too-demanding voters and preach realism.

In a landmark study, a team of Chinese scientists using an experimental satellite has tested quantum entanglement over unprecedented distances, beaming entangled pairs of photons to three ground stations across China--each separated by more than 1,200 kilometers. The test verifies a mysterious and long-held tenet of quantum theory, and firmly establishes China as the front-runner in a burgeoning "quantum space race" to create a secure, quantum-based global communications network--that is, a potentially unhackable "quantum internet" that would be of immense geopolitical importance.

King Constantine I of Greece abdicates, forced out by Allied threats to bomb Athens if he doesn't. His younger son Alexander will now be king, because the Allies didn't like older son Crown Prince George either.